Religious Life and Controversy in New Sweden, Iowa, 1845-1860

RELIGIOUS LIFE AND CONTROVERSY IN
NEW SWEDEN, IOWA, 1845-1860
K E V I N PROESCHOLDT
Within a decade of New Sweden's founding in 1845, this relatively
small rural community in southeastern Iowa had been torn apart
several times over religious controversies. This resulted in, among
other things, three churches of different denominations within a half
mile of each other on the same country road. The early religious life
and controversies that raged in New Sweden during the first ten to
fifteen years of the settlement's existence are significant for a number
of reasons: 1) Leaders of several of the major Swedish-American
religious denominations worked in and influenced New Sweden.
They had influence here and New Sweden, in turn, influenced them;
2) The controversies that raged in New Sweden and the competition
among various denominations here often occurred in other Swedish
settlements and communities in America; 3) From our vantage point
150 years later, the passions that these controversies engendered may
seem almost unbelievably intense. But these passions at least in part
indicate the strength of the religious convictions of these pietistic
people, and their struggle for religious meaning in the new open
atmosphere of religious freedom in America; and 4) The recorded
history of these controversies often depended on the denominational
affiliation of the historian involved.
This short overview of the religious controversies of early New
Sweden will use as much of the primary source material as possible,
in as nonpartisan a manner as possible. As the following citations
indicate, however, the viewpoints of the various historians were often
anything but nonpartisan.
Background
Several aspects of the background on religious conditions in
Sweden in the first half of the nineteenth century help to account for
84
what would later happen in New Sweden. Simplistic though this may
be, these factors helped set the stage for many of the controversies
that later swept over New Sweden.
First, Sweden had been a Lutheran nation since the days of Gustaf
Vasa in the sixteenth century. The Lutheran Church was the official
state Church of Sweden, so that Lutheran pastors served as function­aries
not only of the church but of the Swedish government as well.
As such, they assumed extremely powerful roles in the daily lives of
the people.
Second, not only was the Lutheran persuasion the Church of
Sweden, but religious freedom for other denominations did not exist
here until 1860. Since 1726, moreover, the konventikelplakat had
governed religious matters in Sweden. This proclamation could be
invoked against any citizen who attended the "conventicles," which
were considered secret or illegal religious assemblies. Swedish pastors
or other authorities could use this law to prohibit parishioners from
meeting to study the Bible or religious matters without the direction
and supervision of the pastor.1
Third, a pietistic revival had begun in Sweden, fueled partly
against the stiff formalism and autocratic nature of the Church of
Sweden and partly by widespread consumption of the ubiquitous
alcoholic beverage called brännvin. The temperance and the religious
revival movements were often closely linked. The pietists were
usually said to be läsare, literally "readers," and they believed in
personal religious commitment and experience, in contradistinction
to the cold, impersonal doctrine heard from the pulpits on Sundays.2
Finally, Peter Cassel had participated in the pietistic revival in his
native Östergötland and was a strong believer in temperance as well.
Most likely others in New Sweden had had similar experiences.3
New Sweden Lutheran Church
The religious life of New Sweden during the first decade of the
settlement's existence intertwined extensively with the life of Magnus
Fredrik Håkanson. A shoemaker from Blekinge, Håkanson had first
arrived in New Sweden in the early summer of 1847. Not impressed
with what he found, Håkanson left the settlement, intending to go
back to his homeland but never getting there. In Saint Louis, he lost
his belongings and money. Penniless, he survived by eating apples
picked up from the streets. He reconsidered his decision to leave the
85
country and returned to New Sweden by late 1847.
M. F. Håkanson.
In this rural community, the early settlers had apparently met in
each others' homes for Sunday prayers and services. Håkanson was
a religious man who in Sweden had been a follower of Pastor Peter
Lorenz Sellergren, a well-known läsare clergyman. Although Håkan­son
had never had any formal religious education or training, the
New Sweden settlers persuaded him to preach a sermon on Christ­mas
Day 1847, and they liked what they heard.
One month later, in January 1848, the New Sweden colony
organized a more formal church congregation and called Håkanson
as their pastor. Since these people had all been Lutherans in Sweden,
the congregation considered itself to be a Lutheran one here, too.
These were the beginnings of the New Sweden Lutheran Church, the
first congregation in what a dozen years later would become the
Augustana Synod.
Peter Cassel described the new church in a letter he wrote back to
Sweden in December 1848:
86
Send me three copies of the small hymnbook and one with
large type and two or three catechisms. We need these as the
old ones are very worn by frequent use and the catechisms we
need for the children since they are to read their confirmation
lessons in Swedish, because we now have a pastor. He was
born in Blekinge and is 32 years old, a disciple of the true
Pastor Sellergren and a faithful follower of him in life as well
as in doctrine. For eleven months now he has preached every
Sunday and holiday; on weekdays he works like the rest of us,
because he does not need to take any time to write his
sermons, as he has an unusual ability to speak. I recall some
Sundays when he preached [for] over two hours and as
fluently the second [one] as the first. This month on the 9th he
married a Swedish girl. We are thirteen families who pay the
pastor's salary; and there are four who are excused from
paying him anything, although they do belong to the church.4
Håkanson also started and taught the first confirmation class at
the New Sweden Lutheran Church is 1848, a group of five youngsters
that included Andrew F. Cassel, Mathilda Cassel, Victor Danielson,
Maria Danielson, and Lovisa Bruse. Lutheran historians Fritiof Ander
and George Stephenson later examined early documents from this
congregation, which indicated that Håkanson began performing
baptisms in 1848 as well.5
Gustaf Unonius—Portent of Things to Come
The year after the Lutheran congregation was organized, the first
in a series of ministers of other denominations visited New Sweden.
The first of them, though fairly noncontroversial, foreshadowed the
more bitter controversies yet to come. In the summer of 1849, the
Swedish Episcopal clergyman Gustaf Unonius visited New Sweden.
He was the founder of the short-lived Pine Lake, Wisconsin,
settlement to which Peter Cassel had initially intended to travel in
1845. Unonius had since been ordained as an Episcopal minister.
Lutheran historian Eric Norelius writes:
[Unonius] strongly disapproved of their church arrangements
and tried to show them that it was impossible to have a
congregation without a duly ordained minister. He claimed
that a Christian community did not in any circumstance have
87
the right to call a pastor who has not been consecrated to this
office by a bishop. He especially criticized [Håkanson] for his
presumptuous and inconsiderate manner.6
Unonius, however, did not mention his concern about the N ew
Sweden church in his memoirs, which were written after his return
to his homeland in 1858:
In the town of Burlington there were only a few Swedish
working people, but about thirty miles west of that town was
a settlement that promised to become very important in the
future, and which at this time is reported to have a population
of about four hundred. It has adopted the name of New
Sweden and is no doubt the largest of many settlements in that
state, for most of them are small in population. All the land in
that region has been settled, so that if an immigrant wants to
settle there he will have to pay from $10 to $15 per acre for an
uncultivated piece of ground.7
New Sweden Methodist Church
The Peter Cassel party of 1845 had visited the Swedish Methodist
missionary Olof Hedström and the Bethel Ship in New York's harbor
after their arrival there that August, according to the account written
by Cassel's son Andrew: "Nearby where we anchored was a ship
rigged for a church, where there was Swedish preaching every day
by the Rev. O. G. Hedström. The [vessel] was called John Wesley, or
the Bethel Ship."8 It was accordingly from Olof Hedström that the
Cassel party first heard Methodist preaching and doctrine in America.
Olofs brother, Jonas J. Hedström, had moved to Victoria, Illinois,
and by 1848 he had become a ministerial member on trial in the Rock
River Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.9 A blacksmith
by trade, Jonas Hedström also began his work as a fiery Methodist
missionary among the incoming trickle of Swedish immigrants or
refugees from Eric Jansson's Bishop Hill Colony. An early New
Sweden immigrant who had converted to Methodism, John Wilson,
wrote of Jonas Hedström: "The Lord converted a blacksmith, brother
Hedström, with just two hammers, one to support the natural body
and to do good to the needy, and the other to break the stone
heart."10
88
Jonas H e d s t r o m .
Jonas Hedstrom first visited New Sweden in the spring of 1850.
He preached on Pentecost Sunday and for a total of three days—then
returned in November for a revival meeting of eight days, out of
which he formed the New Sweden Methodist Church. Several of the
leaders of the New Sweden settlement, including Peter Cassel and
John Danielson, joined the new church.
Hedström's account of his work in New Sweden, written in
February 1851, appeared in the thirty-second annual report of the
Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society:
We have extended our work across the Mississippi River into
Jefferson County, in the State of Iowa, where there is a large
Swedish settlement. I visited that place last spring, and the
people received me with much friendship. We began and
continued a meeting [for] three days, and the Lord was present
to bless the people. Many were inquiring after the way of life;
but having some appointments out, I had to leave this interest-
89
New Sweden Baptist Church
Even as the New Sweden Methodist Church was developing and
growing, another controversy was soon to rock New Sweden, and
particularly the Lutheran Church once again. This controversy came
from the early Swedish Baptist missionaries Fredrik O. Nilsson,
Anders Wiberg, and Gustaf Palmquist.
Palmquist had visited New Sweden as early as October 1851,
before he had converted to the Baptist persuasion, to visit an old
friend there, Olof Peterson. Palmquist also knew Rev. Håkanson, the
Lutheran pastor. Peterson subsequently wrote that his guest had
questions about infant baptism during that earlier trip. At the end of
1853 and into 1854, Palmquist, now a Baptist, returned to New
Sweden along with Anders Wiberg. They held revival meetings in a
log cabin owned by a man named William Högman, just up from
Brushy Creek. Several were re-baptized at a place soon known as
Baptist Ford.
Once again, Magnus Fredrik Håkanson faltered, now during
debates with the Baptist missionaries. The story is best told through
letters written by Palmquist, Wiberg, Nilsson, and Håkanson:
Nilsson to Wiberg, Burlington, 6 March 1854:
Håkanson has become enraged, or downhearted or convinced
of the truth—I don't know which, perhaps all three—that he
has resigned the ministerial office. A great stir has arisen and
many will undoubtedly be brought to see their sins and their
need of Christ. Pray for u s . . . That this has caused great anger
among the majority of the Swedes you will not wonder at.
Palmquist to Wiberg, Burlington, 11 March 1854:
Håkanson, who until lately has been strongly opposed to the
Baptists, has given up, and resigned from the ministry both
here and in Skunk River [New Sweden]. Last time he preached
there, which was Sunday and here Sunday a week ago, he
confessed publicly that he could no longer withstand the truth
on the question of baptism but had to admit that the Baptists
were right. It is now rumored that he also expects to be
baptized. All this has caused a great confusion among the
Lutherans as you might well imagine. Hasselquist is expected
92
here any day to investigate conditions. It were well, if Håkan­son
really were sincere, then he would be very useful to us in
these places.
Palmquist to Wiberg, Rock Island, 7 April 1854:
Tuesday morning I went to Burlington, but Nilsson remained
a couple of days longer [in New Sweden], because it was
planned that Håkanson and his wife were to be baptized. The
same day I left, Nilsson held a meeting at which Håkanson
and his wife were received into membership. It was decided
that the baptism was to take place on Wednesday at 10 o'clock,
when a meeting was also announced to be held at a M r .
Carlsson's, who is a Baptist. Nilsson and others went there, but
Håkanson did not come. About noon he came alone and told
that he and his wife were on their way in the morning with
their clothes under their arms, but when they reached the
meadow [near] Carlsson's they met Hasselquist from Gales-burg,
who at once attacked them on the question of baptism.
They walked back and forth over the meadow [for] an hour or
two and then returned home with Hasselquist. The result was
that they must postpone the baptism. But he wanted to let
them know so they should not wait for him. Nilsson told him
that he should not act contrary to his conscience, but on the
other hand if he were convinced of the truth he should not let
anyone hinder him. In other words, he should judge every­thing
according to Scripture. After a moment's reflection
Håkanson decided to be baptized and asked Carlsson to go
home after his clothes, which he did [and thereupon] the
baptism took place.
Hasselquist then preached in a lying manner about baptism,
thereby making the people more unresponsive than ever. I am
not fully satisfied with Håkanson's inner life. God grant that
there might be more stability in this respect, then he would be
very useful. So far he has caused both Nilsson and me much
concern. Rumor has it that he is wavering and has even gone
back.19
Indeed he had. Håkanson wrote to the Lutheran pastor Lars Paul
Esbjörn on 29 March 1854:
93
If I had misery before I joined the Anabaptists, I had no less
afterwards. Remorse, anguish, despair and terror overwhelmed
me, so that I was on the point of leaving wife and property. I
became so disgusted with my new brethren that I hardly
wanted to see them. One single day I was in their company,
then I separated myself wholly from them. I regret, bemoan
and deplore the unfortunate day that I disavowed the baptism
I received as a child. . . . I will even confess that I never was
fully convinced, but in a state of fear and agitation I went as
a criminal to the place of execution. Brother Hasselquist was
here last week. He has taught, restored and comforted me.20
Despite Håkanson's wavering, the New Sweden Baptist Church
was organized on 23 May 1854. Håkanson returned to the Lutheran
Church as its pastor, formed several other Lutheran congregations in
Iowa during his ministry, and also was a charter pastor when the
Augustana Synod was organized in 1860. Ironically, the first pastor
of the New Sweden Baptist Church was Andrew Norelius (who
served from 1855 to 1856), a brother of the Lutheran pastor and
historian Eric Norelius. In 1854, the new Baptist congregation built a
church on the north side of the same road but just east of the
Lutheran's sanctuary. This church building lasted until it was torn
down in 1893.
A final incident regarding the church property reveals not only the
height of tensions and suspicions between the Lutherans and Baptists
in New Sweden at that time but also the differing interpretations of
these events by the denominational historians. In 1851, Carl (Charles)
Carlson and Olof Peterson, trustees of the Lutheran Church, had
purchased one acre of land, which was to be used by the Swedish
Lutheran Church. On this property both the first log church and the
second, the still existing Lutheran church were built. By 1854,
however, both of these men had become Baptists and had helped
form the New Sweden Baptist Church.
Some of the remaining Lutherans suspected that Carlson and
Peterson would hold on to the Lutheran property and turn the
building over to the Baptists. One of these Lutherans, John Almgren,
wrote of the incident forty years later:
What was there now for us to do? Palm and I talked the
matter over and went to a couple of neighbors and we decided
that all should meet at one place, which [we] did. All who
94
were entitled to vote decided, after [we] had discussed the
matter, to elect two trustees to go to those who held the deed
and get a new one legally written to a Lutheran congregation,
and if this could be done, go to Fairfield and have it recorded
and the church incorporated, for there was no time to lose. The
lot fell on P. Palm and me. The following day we went to a
justice of the peace and to those who held the old deed. It was
not so easy to get them to give up the deed, but they were at
last compelled to do so. . . . The following day we went to
Fairfield and had the church incorporated.21
Although Almgren's sequence of events is not quite correct, the
Lutheran Church did adopt articles of incorporation on 8 May 1854
(recorded at the courthouse on 19 May 1854). On 19 July 1854, Olof
Peterson and Charles Carlson signed over the deed to John Almgren
and Peter Palm "as trustees of the Swedish Lutheran Church," and it
was recorded on 8 August 1854.22
The Baptists, of course, offer a different interpretation of these
events. There is no evidence indicating that Olof Peterson or Charles
Carlson actually intended to steal the Lutheran property on behalf of
the Baptists. Long after the fact in the 1930s, a Baptist historian wrote
of these events with considerable sarcasm about the paranoia
exhibited by the Lutherans and Lutheran historians:
And to impress upon future generations the imminent danger
from which the church property had been rescued thru the
quick action of courageous and plucky men who did not wince
in the face of two Baptists, the fact is reiterated that The
Baptists had thus failed. The Lutheran Church and its property
were rescued through God's wonderful leading and a few
men's pluck.'23
Olof Peterson and Charles' brother Peter Carlson, by the way,
were both subsequently ordained by the Baptist Church and served
the New Sweden Baptist congregation for many years. During the
late 1870s Olof Peterson and several other leaders of this church left
New Sweden and settled in Stromsburg, Nebraska, moves that led to
the decline of the New Sweden Baptist Church. Peterson's journal of
his years in New Sweden, which has been deposited at the Bethel
Seminary Archives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, should yield additional
information on the old days of New Sweden.24
95
Conclusion
The religious controversies during the early years of N ew Sweden
tell us much of the struggles of the early Swedish-American churches
in bringing their fellow immigrants to the faith, as well as of the
struggles among the denominations themselves. Despite the intensity
of the controversies described here, one suspects that the New
Sweden residents, who lived with their neighbors after the three
churches had been established by clergymen from outside the
community, gradually attained greater harmony among themselves
than had been the case early on in their history.
At least two references in the surviving documents support this
supposition. The Swedish-American newspaper H e m l a n d e t , in an
account of New Sweden published in 1858, stated that a Baptist (most
likely Olof Peterson or one of the Carlsons) was preaching in the
Lutheran Church to fill in after the Rev. M. F. Håkanson had left the
community.2 5 And Olof Peterson wrote in his journal on the eve of the
Civil War that Union meetings were held in New Sweden during the
first week of January 1861. These meetings alternated among the
three churches, and Peterson preached in the Lutheran Church as
well as the Baptist one.2 6 By the 1860s, then, the religious life in New
Sweden appears to have become considerably less fractious and much
calmer.
NOTES
1 George M. Stephenson, The R e l i g i o u s Aspects of S w e d i s h I m m i g r a t i o n (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1932), 1-23.
z I b i d .
'Curt von Wachenfeldt, "Background to Peter Cassel's Emigration," S w e d i s h P i o n e er
H i s t o r i c a l Q u a r t e r l y (April 1981): 97-98.
4 George M. Stephenson, Documents Related to Peter Cassel and the Settlement at New
Sweden, Iowa," S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n H i s t o r i c a l B u l l e t i n (February 1929): 74-75.
5 Carl J. Bengtson, "The First Confirmation Class at New Sweden, Iowa," The L u t h e r a n
C o m p a n i o n (19 July 1924): 1-2. See also P. O. Bersell, "New Sweden or Andover?" The
L u t h e r a n C o m p a n i o n (24 March 1943): 360-63.
6Eric Norelius, D e Svenska Luterska Församlingarnas och Svenskames H i s t o r i a i A m e r i k a
(Rock Island, Illinois: Lutheran Augustana Book Concern, 1890). An English translation
of this book recently appeared: Eric Norelius, The P i o n e e r S w e d i s h S e t t l e m e n t s and
S w e d i s h L u t h e r a n Churches in A m e r i c a 1845-1860, Conrad Bergendoff, trans. (Rock Island,
Illinois: Augustana Historical Society, 1984), 45-46.
7 Gustaf Unonius, A P i o n e e r in N o r t h w e s t A m e r i c a 1841-1858: The M e m o i r s of G u s t a f
U n o n i u s , Vol. II (Minneapolis: Swedish Pioneer Historical Society and University of
96
Minnesota Press, 1960), 226-27.
8 Andrew F. Cassel's account, "History of the First Swedish Emigrants in the 19th
Century Who Came to the U.S.," was given on 15 August 1895 at the old Cassel
homestead during the 50th anniversary of the settlement of New Sweden. It is found
on pp. 7-18 of Carl J. Bengtson's manuscript "The Early History of New Sweden, Iowa,"
Part I, 1925, ELCA Archives, Chicago.
9 Henry C. Whyman, T h e H e d s t r o m s a n d the Bethel Ship S a g a : M e t h o d i s t I n f l u e n c e o n
S w e d i s h R e l i g i o u s Life (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 120-22;
T h i r t i e t h A n n u a l R e p o r t of the M . E. M i s s i o n a r y Society 1849: 78-79.
1 0 John Wilson, "Memory of Past Life," Bernice Wilson Munsey, trans.
"J. J. Hedstrom, missionary, Report of 25 February 1851, in T h i r t y - s e c o n d A n n u a l R e p o r t
of t h e M . E. M i s s i o n a r y Society 1851: 63.
1 2 Norelius, 48-49.
1 3 C. A. Anderson, "A Short History of the Swedish M. E. Church, New Sweden, Iowa,"
circa 1891, manuscript translated by Carl J. Bengtson, ELCA Archives.
1 4 Victor Witting, M i n n e n från mitt Lif som Sjöman, I m m i g r a n t och Predikant (Worcester,
Massachusetts: Burbank & Co. Tryckeri, 1902), 448-50.
" I b i d . , 449.
" I b i d . , 219-22; see also Sändebudet, 17 June 1940, 1, 5.
" M i s s i o n a r y A d v o c a t e 13:7 (October 1857): 55.
1 8Olof Peterson papers, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
"The letters originally appeared in Gunnar Westin, U r den s v e n s k a folkväckelsens historia
och tankevärld, III: 1 & 2 (Stockholm, 1934). Excerpts were reprinted in Oscar N. Olson,
T h e A u g u s t a n a L u t h e r a n C h u r c h in A m e r i c a : P i o n e e r P e r i o d 1 8 4 6 to 1 8 6 0 (Rock Island,
Illinois: Augustana Book Concern, 1950), 98-103.
2 0 Norelius, 52-53.
2 1 John Almgren to Carl J. Bengtson, 3 October 1894, Original letter in ELCA Archives;
an English translation is found in Carl J. Bengtson, "The Early History of New Sweden,
Iowa, Part II: Mr. John Almgren's Story," manuscript, ELCA Archives, Chicago.
2 2 Carl J. Bengtson, "Kort Församlingens Historik," manuscript, 1898, 25-29, in ELCA
Archives.
2 3 L. J. Ahlstrom, E i g h t y Y e a r s of S w e d i s h Baptist Work in Iowa 1 8 5 3 - 1 9 3 3 (Minneapolis:
Minnesota State Printing Co., 1933), 117-88.
2 4 Olof Peterson papers, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
^ H e m l a n d e t , No. 7, 30 March 1858, 1.
2 4 Olof Peterson journal, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
97

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RELIGIOUS LIFE AND CONTROVERSY IN
NEW SWEDEN, IOWA, 1845-1860
K E V I N PROESCHOLDT
Within a decade of New Sweden's founding in 1845, this relatively
small rural community in southeastern Iowa had been torn apart
several times over religious controversies. This resulted in, among
other things, three churches of different denominations within a half
mile of each other on the same country road. The early religious life
and controversies that raged in New Sweden during the first ten to
fifteen years of the settlement's existence are significant for a number
of reasons: 1) Leaders of several of the major Swedish-American
religious denominations worked in and influenced New Sweden.
They had influence here and New Sweden, in turn, influenced them;
2) The controversies that raged in New Sweden and the competition
among various denominations here often occurred in other Swedish
settlements and communities in America; 3) From our vantage point
150 years later, the passions that these controversies engendered may
seem almost unbelievably intense. But these passions at least in part
indicate the strength of the religious convictions of these pietistic
people, and their struggle for religious meaning in the new open
atmosphere of religious freedom in America; and 4) The recorded
history of these controversies often depended on the denominational
affiliation of the historian involved.
This short overview of the religious controversies of early New
Sweden will use as much of the primary source material as possible,
in as nonpartisan a manner as possible. As the following citations
indicate, however, the viewpoints of the various historians were often
anything but nonpartisan.
Background
Several aspects of the background on religious conditions in
Sweden in the first half of the nineteenth century help to account for
84
what would later happen in New Sweden. Simplistic though this may
be, these factors helped set the stage for many of the controversies
that later swept over New Sweden.
First, Sweden had been a Lutheran nation since the days of Gustaf
Vasa in the sixteenth century. The Lutheran Church was the official
state Church of Sweden, so that Lutheran pastors served as function­aries
not only of the church but of the Swedish government as well.
As such, they assumed extremely powerful roles in the daily lives of
the people.
Second, not only was the Lutheran persuasion the Church of
Sweden, but religious freedom for other denominations did not exist
here until 1860. Since 1726, moreover, the konventikelplakat had
governed religious matters in Sweden. This proclamation could be
invoked against any citizen who attended the "conventicles," which
were considered secret or illegal religious assemblies. Swedish pastors
or other authorities could use this law to prohibit parishioners from
meeting to study the Bible or religious matters without the direction
and supervision of the pastor.1
Third, a pietistic revival had begun in Sweden, fueled partly
against the stiff formalism and autocratic nature of the Church of
Sweden and partly by widespread consumption of the ubiquitous
alcoholic beverage called brännvin. The temperance and the religious
revival movements were often closely linked. The pietists were
usually said to be läsare, literally "readers," and they believed in
personal religious commitment and experience, in contradistinction
to the cold, impersonal doctrine heard from the pulpits on Sundays.2
Finally, Peter Cassel had participated in the pietistic revival in his
native Östergötland and was a strong believer in temperance as well.
Most likely others in New Sweden had had similar experiences.3
New Sweden Lutheran Church
The religious life of New Sweden during the first decade of the
settlement's existence intertwined extensively with the life of Magnus
Fredrik Håkanson. A shoemaker from Blekinge, Håkanson had first
arrived in New Sweden in the early summer of 1847. Not impressed
with what he found, Håkanson left the settlement, intending to go
back to his homeland but never getting there. In Saint Louis, he lost
his belongings and money. Penniless, he survived by eating apples
picked up from the streets. He reconsidered his decision to leave the
85
country and returned to New Sweden by late 1847.
M. F. Håkanson.
In this rural community, the early settlers had apparently met in
each others' homes for Sunday prayers and services. Håkanson was
a religious man who in Sweden had been a follower of Pastor Peter
Lorenz Sellergren, a well-known läsare clergyman. Although Håkan­son
had never had any formal religious education or training, the
New Sweden settlers persuaded him to preach a sermon on Christ­mas
Day 1847, and they liked what they heard.
One month later, in January 1848, the New Sweden colony
organized a more formal church congregation and called Håkanson
as their pastor. Since these people had all been Lutherans in Sweden,
the congregation considered itself to be a Lutheran one here, too.
These were the beginnings of the New Sweden Lutheran Church, the
first congregation in what a dozen years later would become the
Augustana Synod.
Peter Cassel described the new church in a letter he wrote back to
Sweden in December 1848:
86
Send me three copies of the small hymnbook and one with
large type and two or three catechisms. We need these as the
old ones are very worn by frequent use and the catechisms we
need for the children since they are to read their confirmation
lessons in Swedish, because we now have a pastor. He was
born in Blekinge and is 32 years old, a disciple of the true
Pastor Sellergren and a faithful follower of him in life as well
as in doctrine. For eleven months now he has preached every
Sunday and holiday; on weekdays he works like the rest of us,
because he does not need to take any time to write his
sermons, as he has an unusual ability to speak. I recall some
Sundays when he preached [for] over two hours and as
fluently the second [one] as the first. This month on the 9th he
married a Swedish girl. We are thirteen families who pay the
pastor's salary; and there are four who are excused from
paying him anything, although they do belong to the church.4
Håkanson also started and taught the first confirmation class at
the New Sweden Lutheran Church is 1848, a group of five youngsters
that included Andrew F. Cassel, Mathilda Cassel, Victor Danielson,
Maria Danielson, and Lovisa Bruse. Lutheran historians Fritiof Ander
and George Stephenson later examined early documents from this
congregation, which indicated that Håkanson began performing
baptisms in 1848 as well.5
Gustaf Unonius—Portent of Things to Come
The year after the Lutheran congregation was organized, the first
in a series of ministers of other denominations visited New Sweden.
The first of them, though fairly noncontroversial, foreshadowed the
more bitter controversies yet to come. In the summer of 1849, the
Swedish Episcopal clergyman Gustaf Unonius visited New Sweden.
He was the founder of the short-lived Pine Lake, Wisconsin,
settlement to which Peter Cassel had initially intended to travel in
1845. Unonius had since been ordained as an Episcopal minister.
Lutheran historian Eric Norelius writes:
[Unonius] strongly disapproved of their church arrangements
and tried to show them that it was impossible to have a
congregation without a duly ordained minister. He claimed
that a Christian community did not in any circumstance have
87
the right to call a pastor who has not been consecrated to this
office by a bishop. He especially criticized [Håkanson] for his
presumptuous and inconsiderate manner.6
Unonius, however, did not mention his concern about the N ew
Sweden church in his memoirs, which were written after his return
to his homeland in 1858:
In the town of Burlington there were only a few Swedish
working people, but about thirty miles west of that town was
a settlement that promised to become very important in the
future, and which at this time is reported to have a population
of about four hundred. It has adopted the name of New
Sweden and is no doubt the largest of many settlements in that
state, for most of them are small in population. All the land in
that region has been settled, so that if an immigrant wants to
settle there he will have to pay from $10 to $15 per acre for an
uncultivated piece of ground.7
New Sweden Methodist Church
The Peter Cassel party of 1845 had visited the Swedish Methodist
missionary Olof Hedström and the Bethel Ship in New York's harbor
after their arrival there that August, according to the account written
by Cassel's son Andrew: "Nearby where we anchored was a ship
rigged for a church, where there was Swedish preaching every day
by the Rev. O. G. Hedström. The [vessel] was called John Wesley, or
the Bethel Ship."8 It was accordingly from Olof Hedström that the
Cassel party first heard Methodist preaching and doctrine in America.
Olofs brother, Jonas J. Hedström, had moved to Victoria, Illinois,
and by 1848 he had become a ministerial member on trial in the Rock
River Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.9 A blacksmith
by trade, Jonas Hedström also began his work as a fiery Methodist
missionary among the incoming trickle of Swedish immigrants or
refugees from Eric Jansson's Bishop Hill Colony. An early New
Sweden immigrant who had converted to Methodism, John Wilson,
wrote of Jonas Hedström: "The Lord converted a blacksmith, brother
Hedström, with just two hammers, one to support the natural body
and to do good to the needy, and the other to break the stone
heart."10
88
Jonas H e d s t r o m .
Jonas Hedstrom first visited New Sweden in the spring of 1850.
He preached on Pentecost Sunday and for a total of three days—then
returned in November for a revival meeting of eight days, out of
which he formed the New Sweden Methodist Church. Several of the
leaders of the New Sweden settlement, including Peter Cassel and
John Danielson, joined the new church.
Hedström's account of his work in New Sweden, written in
February 1851, appeared in the thirty-second annual report of the
Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society:
We have extended our work across the Mississippi River into
Jefferson County, in the State of Iowa, where there is a large
Swedish settlement. I visited that place last spring, and the
people received me with much friendship. We began and
continued a meeting [for] three days, and the Lord was present
to bless the people. Many were inquiring after the way of life;
but having some appointments out, I had to leave this interest-
89
New Sweden Baptist Church
Even as the New Sweden Methodist Church was developing and
growing, another controversy was soon to rock New Sweden, and
particularly the Lutheran Church once again. This controversy came
from the early Swedish Baptist missionaries Fredrik O. Nilsson,
Anders Wiberg, and Gustaf Palmquist.
Palmquist had visited New Sweden as early as October 1851,
before he had converted to the Baptist persuasion, to visit an old
friend there, Olof Peterson. Palmquist also knew Rev. Håkanson, the
Lutheran pastor. Peterson subsequently wrote that his guest had
questions about infant baptism during that earlier trip. At the end of
1853 and into 1854, Palmquist, now a Baptist, returned to New
Sweden along with Anders Wiberg. They held revival meetings in a
log cabin owned by a man named William Högman, just up from
Brushy Creek. Several were re-baptized at a place soon known as
Baptist Ford.
Once again, Magnus Fredrik Håkanson faltered, now during
debates with the Baptist missionaries. The story is best told through
letters written by Palmquist, Wiberg, Nilsson, and Håkanson:
Nilsson to Wiberg, Burlington, 6 March 1854:
Håkanson has become enraged, or downhearted or convinced
of the truth—I don't know which, perhaps all three—that he
has resigned the ministerial office. A great stir has arisen and
many will undoubtedly be brought to see their sins and their
need of Christ. Pray for u s . . . That this has caused great anger
among the majority of the Swedes you will not wonder at.
Palmquist to Wiberg, Burlington, 11 March 1854:
Håkanson, who until lately has been strongly opposed to the
Baptists, has given up, and resigned from the ministry both
here and in Skunk River [New Sweden]. Last time he preached
there, which was Sunday and here Sunday a week ago, he
confessed publicly that he could no longer withstand the truth
on the question of baptism but had to admit that the Baptists
were right. It is now rumored that he also expects to be
baptized. All this has caused a great confusion among the
Lutherans as you might well imagine. Hasselquist is expected
92
here any day to investigate conditions. It were well, if Håkan­son
really were sincere, then he would be very useful to us in
these places.
Palmquist to Wiberg, Rock Island, 7 April 1854:
Tuesday morning I went to Burlington, but Nilsson remained
a couple of days longer [in New Sweden], because it was
planned that Håkanson and his wife were to be baptized. The
same day I left, Nilsson held a meeting at which Håkanson
and his wife were received into membership. It was decided
that the baptism was to take place on Wednesday at 10 o'clock,
when a meeting was also announced to be held at a M r .
Carlsson's, who is a Baptist. Nilsson and others went there, but
Håkanson did not come. About noon he came alone and told
that he and his wife were on their way in the morning with
their clothes under their arms, but when they reached the
meadow [near] Carlsson's they met Hasselquist from Gales-burg,
who at once attacked them on the question of baptism.
They walked back and forth over the meadow [for] an hour or
two and then returned home with Hasselquist. The result was
that they must postpone the baptism. But he wanted to let
them know so they should not wait for him. Nilsson told him
that he should not act contrary to his conscience, but on the
other hand if he were convinced of the truth he should not let
anyone hinder him. In other words, he should judge every­thing
according to Scripture. After a moment's reflection
Håkanson decided to be baptized and asked Carlsson to go
home after his clothes, which he did [and thereupon] the
baptism took place.
Hasselquist then preached in a lying manner about baptism,
thereby making the people more unresponsive than ever. I am
not fully satisfied with Håkanson's inner life. God grant that
there might be more stability in this respect, then he would be
very useful. So far he has caused both Nilsson and me much
concern. Rumor has it that he is wavering and has even gone
back.19
Indeed he had. Håkanson wrote to the Lutheran pastor Lars Paul
Esbjörn on 29 March 1854:
93
If I had misery before I joined the Anabaptists, I had no less
afterwards. Remorse, anguish, despair and terror overwhelmed
me, so that I was on the point of leaving wife and property. I
became so disgusted with my new brethren that I hardly
wanted to see them. One single day I was in their company,
then I separated myself wholly from them. I regret, bemoan
and deplore the unfortunate day that I disavowed the baptism
I received as a child. . . . I will even confess that I never was
fully convinced, but in a state of fear and agitation I went as
a criminal to the place of execution. Brother Hasselquist was
here last week. He has taught, restored and comforted me.20
Despite Håkanson's wavering, the New Sweden Baptist Church
was organized on 23 May 1854. Håkanson returned to the Lutheran
Church as its pastor, formed several other Lutheran congregations in
Iowa during his ministry, and also was a charter pastor when the
Augustana Synod was organized in 1860. Ironically, the first pastor
of the New Sweden Baptist Church was Andrew Norelius (who
served from 1855 to 1856), a brother of the Lutheran pastor and
historian Eric Norelius. In 1854, the new Baptist congregation built a
church on the north side of the same road but just east of the
Lutheran's sanctuary. This church building lasted until it was torn
down in 1893.
A final incident regarding the church property reveals not only the
height of tensions and suspicions between the Lutherans and Baptists
in New Sweden at that time but also the differing interpretations of
these events by the denominational historians. In 1851, Carl (Charles)
Carlson and Olof Peterson, trustees of the Lutheran Church, had
purchased one acre of land, which was to be used by the Swedish
Lutheran Church. On this property both the first log church and the
second, the still existing Lutheran church were built. By 1854,
however, both of these men had become Baptists and had helped
form the New Sweden Baptist Church.
Some of the remaining Lutherans suspected that Carlson and
Peterson would hold on to the Lutheran property and turn the
building over to the Baptists. One of these Lutherans, John Almgren,
wrote of the incident forty years later:
What was there now for us to do? Palm and I talked the
matter over and went to a couple of neighbors and we decided
that all should meet at one place, which [we] did. All who
94
were entitled to vote decided, after [we] had discussed the
matter, to elect two trustees to go to those who held the deed
and get a new one legally written to a Lutheran congregation,
and if this could be done, go to Fairfield and have it recorded
and the church incorporated, for there was no time to lose. The
lot fell on P. Palm and me. The following day we went to a
justice of the peace and to those who held the old deed. It was
not so easy to get them to give up the deed, but they were at
last compelled to do so. . . . The following day we went to
Fairfield and had the church incorporated.21
Although Almgren's sequence of events is not quite correct, the
Lutheran Church did adopt articles of incorporation on 8 May 1854
(recorded at the courthouse on 19 May 1854). On 19 July 1854, Olof
Peterson and Charles Carlson signed over the deed to John Almgren
and Peter Palm "as trustees of the Swedish Lutheran Church," and it
was recorded on 8 August 1854.22
The Baptists, of course, offer a different interpretation of these
events. There is no evidence indicating that Olof Peterson or Charles
Carlson actually intended to steal the Lutheran property on behalf of
the Baptists. Long after the fact in the 1930s, a Baptist historian wrote
of these events with considerable sarcasm about the paranoia
exhibited by the Lutherans and Lutheran historians:
And to impress upon future generations the imminent danger
from which the church property had been rescued thru the
quick action of courageous and plucky men who did not wince
in the face of two Baptists, the fact is reiterated that The
Baptists had thus failed. The Lutheran Church and its property
were rescued through God's wonderful leading and a few
men's pluck.'23
Olof Peterson and Charles' brother Peter Carlson, by the way,
were both subsequently ordained by the Baptist Church and served
the New Sweden Baptist congregation for many years. During the
late 1870s Olof Peterson and several other leaders of this church left
New Sweden and settled in Stromsburg, Nebraska, moves that led to
the decline of the New Sweden Baptist Church. Peterson's journal of
his years in New Sweden, which has been deposited at the Bethel
Seminary Archives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, should yield additional
information on the old days of New Sweden.24
95
Conclusion
The religious controversies during the early years of N ew Sweden
tell us much of the struggles of the early Swedish-American churches
in bringing their fellow immigrants to the faith, as well as of the
struggles among the denominations themselves. Despite the intensity
of the controversies described here, one suspects that the New
Sweden residents, who lived with their neighbors after the three
churches had been established by clergymen from outside the
community, gradually attained greater harmony among themselves
than had been the case early on in their history.
At least two references in the surviving documents support this
supposition. The Swedish-American newspaper H e m l a n d e t , in an
account of New Sweden published in 1858, stated that a Baptist (most
likely Olof Peterson or one of the Carlsons) was preaching in the
Lutheran Church to fill in after the Rev. M. F. Håkanson had left the
community.2 5 And Olof Peterson wrote in his journal on the eve of the
Civil War that Union meetings were held in New Sweden during the
first week of January 1861. These meetings alternated among the
three churches, and Peterson preached in the Lutheran Church as
well as the Baptist one.2 6 By the 1860s, then, the religious life in New
Sweden appears to have become considerably less fractious and much
calmer.
NOTES
1 George M. Stephenson, The R e l i g i o u s Aspects of S w e d i s h I m m i g r a t i o n (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1932), 1-23.
z I b i d .
'Curt von Wachenfeldt, "Background to Peter Cassel's Emigration," S w e d i s h P i o n e er
H i s t o r i c a l Q u a r t e r l y (April 1981): 97-98.
4 George M. Stephenson, Documents Related to Peter Cassel and the Settlement at New
Sweden, Iowa," S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n H i s t o r i c a l B u l l e t i n (February 1929): 74-75.
5 Carl J. Bengtson, "The First Confirmation Class at New Sweden, Iowa," The L u t h e r a n
C o m p a n i o n (19 July 1924): 1-2. See also P. O. Bersell, "New Sweden or Andover?" The
L u t h e r a n C o m p a n i o n (24 March 1943): 360-63.
6Eric Norelius, D e Svenska Luterska Församlingarnas och Svenskames H i s t o r i a i A m e r i k a
(Rock Island, Illinois: Lutheran Augustana Book Concern, 1890). An English translation
of this book recently appeared: Eric Norelius, The P i o n e e r S w e d i s h S e t t l e m e n t s and
S w e d i s h L u t h e r a n Churches in A m e r i c a 1845-1860, Conrad Bergendoff, trans. (Rock Island,
Illinois: Augustana Historical Society, 1984), 45-46.
7 Gustaf Unonius, A P i o n e e r in N o r t h w e s t A m e r i c a 1841-1858: The M e m o i r s of G u s t a f
U n o n i u s , Vol. II (Minneapolis: Swedish Pioneer Historical Society and University of
96
Minnesota Press, 1960), 226-27.
8 Andrew F. Cassel's account, "History of the First Swedish Emigrants in the 19th
Century Who Came to the U.S.," was given on 15 August 1895 at the old Cassel
homestead during the 50th anniversary of the settlement of New Sweden. It is found
on pp. 7-18 of Carl J. Bengtson's manuscript "The Early History of New Sweden, Iowa,"
Part I, 1925, ELCA Archives, Chicago.
9 Henry C. Whyman, T h e H e d s t r o m s a n d the Bethel Ship S a g a : M e t h o d i s t I n f l u e n c e o n
S w e d i s h R e l i g i o u s Life (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 120-22;
T h i r t i e t h A n n u a l R e p o r t of the M . E. M i s s i o n a r y Society 1849: 78-79.
1 0 John Wilson, "Memory of Past Life," Bernice Wilson Munsey, trans.
"J. J. Hedstrom, missionary, Report of 25 February 1851, in T h i r t y - s e c o n d A n n u a l R e p o r t
of t h e M . E. M i s s i o n a r y Society 1851: 63.
1 2 Norelius, 48-49.
1 3 C. A. Anderson, "A Short History of the Swedish M. E. Church, New Sweden, Iowa,"
circa 1891, manuscript translated by Carl J. Bengtson, ELCA Archives.
1 4 Victor Witting, M i n n e n från mitt Lif som Sjöman, I m m i g r a n t och Predikant (Worcester,
Massachusetts: Burbank & Co. Tryckeri, 1902), 448-50.
" I b i d . , 449.
" I b i d . , 219-22; see also Sändebudet, 17 June 1940, 1, 5.
" M i s s i o n a r y A d v o c a t e 13:7 (October 1857): 55.
1 8Olof Peterson papers, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
"The letters originally appeared in Gunnar Westin, U r den s v e n s k a folkväckelsens historia
och tankevärld, III: 1 & 2 (Stockholm, 1934). Excerpts were reprinted in Oscar N. Olson,
T h e A u g u s t a n a L u t h e r a n C h u r c h in A m e r i c a : P i o n e e r P e r i o d 1 8 4 6 to 1 8 6 0 (Rock Island,
Illinois: Augustana Book Concern, 1950), 98-103.
2 0 Norelius, 52-53.
2 1 John Almgren to Carl J. Bengtson, 3 October 1894, Original letter in ELCA Archives;
an English translation is found in Carl J. Bengtson, "The Early History of New Sweden,
Iowa, Part II: Mr. John Almgren's Story," manuscript, ELCA Archives, Chicago.
2 2 Carl J. Bengtson, "Kort Församlingens Historik," manuscript, 1898, 25-29, in ELCA
Archives.
2 3 L. J. Ahlstrom, E i g h t y Y e a r s of S w e d i s h Baptist Work in Iowa 1 8 5 3 - 1 9 3 3 (Minneapolis:
Minnesota State Printing Co., 1933), 117-88.
2 4 Olof Peterson papers, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
^ H e m l a n d e t , No. 7, 30 March 1858, 1.
2 4 Olof Peterson journal, Bethel Seminary Archives, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
97